"I've been working on banana plantations for 13 years. I don't enjoy it but there's nothing else. This is it, full stop. I left school at the age of 12 and have two children to support. What choice do I have?

It's a long day. I get up at 4am when it's still pitch black outside. I get the children ready for school and then walk 20 minutes to the roadside where a company bus picks me up.

It's an ancient, orange thing and always packed with about 80 other workers, half and half men and women. It's an hour ride to the plantation. We get there by 6am, just when the sun is rising, and start work straight away. We're given boots, gloves and tools.

I'm a selector, which means I'm inside a big warehouse with 42 other workers sorting through the bananas. They arrive on a conveyor belt and you have to be quick. My job is to make sure the ones which go into the box are OK. We get a break at 8am. Fifteen minutes for a coffee, a water, or whatever. Then it's back to the conveyor belt until lunch at 11am, a 30-minute break. I usually have rice and a soda. The odd time I have meat as well. I eat a few bananas a day but you get sick of the sight and smell of them.

Then it's back to the conveyor belt until 2pm when you get another 15- minute break. That's the last one. We go back and work through until 6 or 7pm. By then it's dark and your feet are killing you after all that time standing. The bus journey back home is always quieter than the morning. Everyone is tired.

I earn 7,000 colones (£6.60) per day. It's not much but what really upsets me is that we have to work longer hours than we're supposed to. Eleven hours is the maximum but often we're there for more than 13 hours. We work six days a week, Monday to Saturday. Sometimes it doesn't feel like a life.

We have tried organising a union but the company persecutes those who do it. They put your name on a list and fire you. I know 11 people it happened to. Sometimes they get hired back but on lower wages. Then you have to start all over again, but it's worse."